Best URL-structure for ecommerce store?
-
What structure will recommend to the product pages?
Lets make an example with the keyword "Luxim FZ200"
With category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/digital-cameras/luxim-FZ200.htmlWith /product prefix:
www.myelectronicshop.com/product/luxim-FZ200.htmlWithout category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/luxim-FZ200.htmlI have read in a blog post that Paddy Moogan recommend /lluxim-FZ200.html - i think i prefer this version too.
But I can see that many of the bigger ecommerce stores are using a /product prefix before the product name. What is the reason for this? and what is best practice?
-
I Have an ecommerce site hosted on volusion and they make the structure /category/product (Specifically www.example.com/shortnameurl/productcode"). I figure with 10000+ sites they have found that this structure is best. They want the best results for their clients so they retain & gain new busines.
I recently tried to duplicate(ish) the product name like /black-luxium-camera/luxiumfz200 ... and google killed me.
My suggestion, stick with /categoryORbrand/product, NOT .com/product/ as there is more opportunity to stand out when people search.
-
I guess if you could host all your products at root level then this would be better....it just may be difficult to manage house keeping wise.
-
Why would you go for example.com/product/luxim-FZ200.html instead of example.com/luxim-FZ200.html ?
-
Duplicate content is not at problem - there will of course always be a default category.
-
To avoid duplicate content I would specify that you don't have the same product page sitting in different categories.
Instead the product page should be the same URL even if it lives in multiple categories.e.g. www.example/product/luxim-FZ200.html
So if you click on the product link in Panasonic you go to the product page. You then go to the same page if you click on the product page from the "digital camera" category. The page is then unique and doesn't live in any category in particular.
You can then set the canonical link at product page level.
-
Hey Jesper,
The decision of URL structure can be affected by multiple stuff, that your Content Management System supports or not.
I prefer the 3rd version (the one without category in the link) to avoid duplicate content coming from different URL patterns to the same page (now I know you could place canonical links, but what happens when you have 50000 products and at least 10000 categories and child categories?).
If you do not have too many categories and subcategories, and you are able to insert canonical links into your system, then I would go for URL structure with category name included (it is more descriptive).
Just an example for your case:
A. Website with a lot of categories and subcategories
www.example.com/panasonic/lumix/lumix-FZ200.html
www.example.com/digital-cameras/panasonic/lumx-FZ200.html
www.example/product/luxim-FZ200.html
and so on...
Could leave to duplicate content if you cannot point out which version of the URL is the "Real" version.
B. Website would have the same product under the same categories, but then the product URL would look like:
www.example/luxim-FZ200.html
I hope that helps you take a decision.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
I believe the reason many ecommerce stores use a /product prefix in the URL is because their ecommerce provider / program does it by default.
I'd typically go with the first (with category, but without product) as you have a sort of breadcrumbing in your URL structure, which can also be applied on page.However, I don't usually have products in more than one category - if you do then Paddy's suggestion is the way to go, because, as he says, if you have the category in the URL in that scenario it can lead to duplicate content issues.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Dynamic Url best approach
Hi We are currently in the process of making changes to our travel site where by if someone does a search this information can be stored and also if the user needs to can take the URL and paste into their browser at find that search again. The url will be dynamic for every search, so in order to stop duplicate content I wanted ask what would be the best approach to create the URLS. ** An example of the URL is: ** package-search/holidays/hotelFilters/?depart=LGW&arrival=BJV&sdate=20150812&edate=20150819&adult=2&child=0&infant=0&fsearch=first&directf=false&nights=7&tsdate=&rooms=1&r1a=2&r1c=0&r1i=0&&dest=3&desid=1&rating=&htype=all&btype=all&filter=no&page=1 I wanted to know if people have previous experience in something like this and what would be the best option for SEO. Will we need to create the URL with a # ( As i read this stops google crawling after the #) Block the folder IN ROBOTS is there any other areas I should be aware of in order stop any duplicate content and 404 pages once the URL/HOLIDAY SEARCH is no longer valid. thanks E
Technical SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Product Descriptions for Localized eCommerce Store
Hi, We currently have an eCommerce store that only sells in one country. We are going to open separate stores that will target different countries. As far as product descriptions go my initial plan was to use the same descriptions but then block product pages from being indexed. However this has also ended up blocking us from being able to use Google's product listing ads (it rejects the data feed due to not being able to index the products). Is there a way to copy the descriptions and avoid a delicate content issues without blocking our product pages from being indexed? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | pgicom0 -
# in url affecting rank
Hi I am building links to a page www.companyname.com/category.index.php There is also another similar url www.companyname.com/category.index.php#. This page is linked to from the non # page. This is a new client and I'm not entirely sure why that link is there. Am I correct in thinking that these two urls are different in the eyes of the search engines? If so, would some of the link juice to www.companyname.com/category.index.php be transferred to www.companyname.com/category.index.php# and affect the ranking of the non # page? I hope this makes sense! Thanks
Technical SEO | | sicseo0 -
Friendly URLS (SEO urls)
Hello, I own a eCommerce site with more than 5k of products, urls of products are : www.site.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61_87&product_id=266 Im thinking about make it friend to seo site.com/category/product-brand Here is my question,will I lost ranks for make that change? Its very important to me know it Thank you very much!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Duplicate content with same URL?
SEOmoz is saying that I have duplicate content on: http://www.XXXX.com/content.asp?ID=ID http://www.XXXX.com/CONTENT.ASP?ID=ID The only difference I see in the URL is that the "content.asp" is capitalized in the second URL. Should I be worried about this or is this an issue with the SEOmoz crawl? Thanks for any help. Mike
Technical SEO | | Mike.Goracke0 -
How do I fix these duplicate URLs?
HI guys, I ran a report on my site and it shows some duplicate titles (example below). Do I need to add something to the htaccess file or another file to fix this? I understand that the search engines should only see 1 URL for the page. 2 pages have "Bikes for sale | used bikes | second hand bicycles" title pauslwebsite.com/bikes/ paulswebsite.com/bikes/index.asp Thanks
Technical SEO | | paulmund0 -
URL rewriting from subcategory to category
Hello everybody! I have quite simple question about URL rewriting from subcategory to category, yet I can't find any solution to this problem (due to lack of my deeper apache programming knowledge). Here is my problem/question: we have two website url structures that causes dublicate problems: www.website.lt/language/category/ www.website.lt/language/category/1/ 1 and 2 pages are absolutely same (both also returns 200 OK). What we need is 301 redirect from 2 to 1 without any other deeper categories redirects (like www.website.com/language/category/1/169/ redirecting to .../category/1/ or .../category/). Here goes .htaccess URL rewrite rules: RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /index.php?lang=$1&idr=$2&par1=$3&par2=$4&par3=$5&par4=$6&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /index.php?lang=$1&idr=$2&par1=$3&par2=$4&par3=$5&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /index.php?lang=$1&idr=$2&par1=$3&par2=$4&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/$ /index.php?lang=$1&idr=$2&par1=$3&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/([^/]+)/$ /index.php?lang=$1&idr=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] RewriteRule ^([^/]{1,3})/$ /index.php?lang=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L] There are other redirects that handles non-www to www and related issues: RedirectMatch 301 ^/lt/$ http://www.domain.lt/ RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.lt RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.lt/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$RewriteRule ^(.)$ http://www.domain.lt/$1/ [R=301,L] At this moment we cannot solve this problem with rel canonical (due to our CMS limits). Thanks for your help guys! If You need any other details on our coding, just let me know.
Technical SEO | | jkundrotas0 -
Compare URLs with 302 redirects
Hello I have a store which was developed in Magento. I have about 8300 errors like this: URL: http://www.theprinterdepo.com/catalog/product_compare/add/product/100/uenc/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVwcmludGVyZGVwby5jb20vcHJpbnRlci1wYXJ0cy5odG1sP3A9NA,,/ 1 Warning 302 (Temporary Redirect) Found 3 days ago <dl> <dt>Redirects to</dt> <dt>http://goo.gl/XMaZg</dt> <dd>Description</dd> <dd>Using a 302 redirect will cause search engine crawlers to treat the redirect as temporary and not pass any link juice (ranking power). We highly recommend that you replace 302 redirects with 301 redirects.</dd> </dl> <a class="more expanded">Minimize</a> These URLs, are generated by magento by the COMPARE feature. In my store we bought an extension called SEO Enterprise Suite and I asked the developers(www.mageworx) about this error. Their answer is: Sorry for the late reply. Our extension adds NOINDEX,FOLLOW tag to compare and cookies pages so that they won't be indexed. I do not think that these redirects can hurt your SEO because these pages won't be indexed at all. The question is: What should I do? Is there anyway that SEOMOZ ignores these URLs? What should I do next, I just dont like to have that HIGH number of errors and warnings. Thank you
Technical SEO | | levalencia10